In previous posts I talked about “spreading our wings” and briefly how it had become a symbol of our transitions over the last seven years. I also posted about being baptized to the infinite expanse of heaven. I searched for a representation of these until I found this magnificent bird. It appears to be landing, its head down with its own commanding authority, its wings float upon the breath of the earth and are outstretched from one end of heaven to the other in a beautiful display.

The site’s picture could change in the future, and I wanted to put my thoughts down about this against that time.

Sunday (July 14) my wife and I went and hiked up to a waterfall. We had been there the week before with the kids and wanted to go by ourselves this time. On the way up We ran into a snake, but it was harmless and scurried off. The hike was enjoyable, the falls were beautiful. I took off my shoes and enjoyed the water. As the water flowed around me, I remembered that I had a desire to be rebaptized to the infinite expanse of heaven, and so I did, going under three times.

After we enjoyed the beauty there a while longer I put my shoes back on and we headed back down the trail. Shortly we ran into a group on their way to the falls. A boy and a young girl lead the way. They volunteered that they were from Jackson Missouri and asked us about the falls. We said they were close. I told them about it, that it was nice and cold, refreshing, and there was a place to swim and enjoy themselves. They seemed to anticipate arriving and moved on.

On the way home we stopped at an outdoor shop to view some knives sandals, etc. Then we tried an new coffee shop in the area and then made our way home, listening to an interesting talk by Caroline Myss. We had a great time.

“In order to inspire you, to move you beyond the tribal level of evolution, each one of you has to incarnate into a tribal system where you don’t fit, otherwise you will never take up your bed and walk. You’ve got to not fit. You will spend years trying to fit, but you’re not getting the real message. The real message is you should look at your tribe, embrace them and say thank you for being exactly the way you are, because I need to move on.” (Carolyn Myss, Energy Anatomy)

The tribal system is any group think. What you were born into, believe whether secular or religious, or any new group you attach yourself to. To gain energy and authority back you have to unplug your spiritual circuitry from the tribe, otherwise you will always move and advance at the pace of the tribe. Taking notice of this is why we’re born into a tribe in the first place.

When Jesus told Joseph that “they’re all wrong” that wasn’t a hyperbole then or now, and even people who wanted him to form a church wound up getting him killed. Though every one of them just knew they had Jesus in their heart.

Come to an understanding of Jesus and find yourself incompatible with every group or organization, large or small, including “Biblically-based Christians” who would love to use “the Word” as a way to exert their own manner of righteousness to control, manipulate, judge and not understand.

When Christ, the perfect manifestation of the Father appeared, he set the individual back on the throne that religion had stolen, and cast out religion to the pit in which it belonged. There were no boundaries, or religion, or lack of religion that prevented his attention. When asked “but who is my neighbor” he pointed to the Jews’ enemies–those they considered filthy apostates. When he summed up the final judgement, it had nothing to do with belief systems, or testimonies, only the way we treated the broken individual who came across our path or sought out to relieve their burdens. Religion must protect itself at all costs, even to the casting away family, than to tarnish their chosen system. Christ’s religion for all mankind was “I will suffer anything for you.”

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I have been betrayed by enough “Christlike” people, that I know, at least on earth, what is real and what isn’t. I’ve also, on rare occasions felt true love from others and it has, basically nothing, in my experience, to do with religion.

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Sometimes it’s non-religious people, maybe athiests that are the most God-like. Here’s a line from a silly movie I watched tonight that struck me:

“These mountains are the most beautiful on earth. Most church charity types talk about God…how they walk with God, how they found God…They talk at you instead of to you. And they never ask your opinion. And that’s all you do.”

The man he was talking to in this fictional movie was doing something to ease the suffering of for his fellow humans, the most God-like thing I can think of. And when such a person, even an athiest were to come to the gates of heaven, he would be admitted on the basis on Matthew 25:31-46.

Before we left a prayer was offered, a metaphor of us spreading our wings. Since our journey there have been many incidents some dramatic, some small, some in life, some in dreams that have followed this theme.

Before we left there was over and over an abundance of buzzards, a symbol of death and the eating of dead things.

One is of cursings, the other of blessings. One is fearful in the world, condemns it and knows God stands ready to destroy it, the other sees God and stands in the light of noon day. One hopes if they are faithful, they can escape the torment of the wicked around them as well as their own wickedness, in the other is cast away all fear. One stands stiff and immovable, the other moves with alacrity, adjudicating, bending, adjusting or standing firm. One casts off, the other gathers in. One is scarcity, hoarding, cold, faint and frail, kicking against the pricks and denying life the other is abundance, consumption, vitality, heat, energy, light and life. The one restrains, contains, defines and rejects. Seventy-two being the correct number of them. To another, ideas and beings are eternal. The one has not enough food, money or salvation to go around, in another there is abundance, fullness, always enough and to spare. One is false but believes itself true, the other is genuine and unfeigned. One approaches God in fear and trembling the other has perfect love. For one, the sabbath is holy, for another all days are holy. One prepares one for the other, nothing having changed, but the inner man.

Whew! I sure have learned a lot the last two weeks. It started when I got a text from my mom asking me to come fly down (alone) for my brother’s graduation from law school. That was what triggered the mother/daughter dream that I blogged about in strong and immovable vs. steadfast love. In the dream the mother daughter bond was so strong, but in real life I have a very poor relationship with my mother. It’s hard to be honest, but it’s been poor for a very long time, but always I craved things from her, she grew unable as the years continued to pass, to give. Such as true love and genuine affection. In fact, the more deeply my parents waded into lds church obedience, the less capable of love they both became. That was the point of the dream, that is what the dream has been teaching me these last two (few?) weeks. At first it was very upsetting. In fact, just 9 days after the dream I had a huge burst of honesty, and frustration and a little anger, at my mom. I soon regret the anger, but I realize that I probably wouldn’t ever be able to communicate my need without that driving force. 10 days later, on the phone, I told my mom things she will never be able to hear, understand, believe, or internalize. It was so much water off a ducks back (except for the offense. She took offense and as a blameless victim, from her Christlike pedestal, will condescend to let me know she loves me anyway, I mean always).

“She’s not a person, but a glorified being on a pedestal to be admired. Standing fast and immovable.”

And that is the glory of her LDSism. At least she has that.

After I missed the day of the graduation I went ahead and drove down, with the 6 youngest kids, 3 hours north of there and stayed with my sister. It actually worked out to be a significant part of this whole learning process, as apparently my sister has followed my mom down the path and mimicked the lds party line of uber self righteousness. I’m not sure she meant to, but with just her and myself in the car she gave me a testimony speech of facts that she knows 100% true due to personal experiences that Heavenly Father is real and true, and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the 100% one and only true, valid, real vehicle to return us all, as many people as possible, to Him. – So, p.s. wrapped up in that is the invalid, false, 100% completely unimportant truth of my own personal experiences, in the name of Jesus Christ amen.

That was the first day we got there, and I almost left right then. I almost packed up those precious children of mine and drove straight back home. But we stayed, because they love their cousins so, and we stuck to the plan. I’m sure glad we did! We had a nice time after that and really enjoyed ourselves, but we also learned some very important things:

1. We have no longings for unknown things connected to our family (cousins).

2. We have no regrets for the way we live our lives.

3. We are at peace with the way things are, happy we went, happy still to leave when we did and go back home. (My 18 yo, Trenton, voiced these).

4. We are excited to come home and be us!! We are just right exactly as we are right now in this moment, and it’s beautiful. (That one came from me).

Yet we all agreed and speak for one another. We are us. We are so good. We are valid, important, and truthful. And though our truths are different from others truths, our experiences are facts as well. We can have an inner knowing, even during an outer performance to destroy our personal facts.

Yesterday I was listening to Mythology and Western civilization lecture 5 Cicero and the natural law, from Liberty Classroom. The professor did not actually come out and say it, but was quite clear that the American republic is dead, the spirit of constitutional republicanism was believed by those living at the time to have died by 1805. The form of the constitutional republic has died at some point too though I can’t say when. But I’d never actually allowed myself to let it sink in, to believe it to be true, or heard the idea as thought of and conceived by another. Suddenly I felt tremendous relief, such a horrible weight lifted from my shoulders. When Micah and I first woke up to our awful situation we naively believed others would want to know and be awoken too. Then we felt that we need to fight to try and save the constitution, but after a few years the realization dawned on us that no one else wanted to do it, and that, and this was slower for me, that there was nothing worth saving anymore anyway. Now, with the realization that America as myth, the ideal constitutional form of government, is quite dead, that burden to save her is gone.

Perhaps the most relieving feeling of all is that I can acknowledge out loud that we currently, already, live in a despotic government. There is no reason to worry and fret and make myself ill over some future horrible event when I can realize it has already happened and somehow, in a simple way, we are living our lives as joyfully through as we can. The future has already happened.

I saw a cars bumper sticker this morning and it something to do with America. It was the persons idea of an imaginary America that is only dreamt of, and I knew that those dreams exist and are real, in different individual dreams, of what America can and ought to be. It’s all imaginary, and we are all in a deep deep sleep ….. so frequently a nightmare.

I had a dream in the early morning hours this morning before I woke up, it was a dream of a mother and daughter and their undeniable bond of love. As I lie in bed remembering the dream several different scripture themes came to my mind, the first was that we miss the mark. I vividly recall teaching the children years ago when they were quite young, how God/Heavenly Father, is this strong immovable figure that never varies or changes. We parents used a visual of an unmoving object and then showed that we were a finger on our hand, which, when the finger did something bad such fight and hit, or doesn’t share, or lies or sneaks or steals, that we, our finger, moves away from our Heavenly Father. As I recalled that lesson we taught to the children all those years ago, I thought the idea of us, as the created being, having all of the power of movement, while God, The all powerful, all knowing, all Being, was powerless and always remained immovable, incapable of reconciling the growing distance between a floundering child and a loving parent, was wholly absurd. I realized that we do indeed miss the mark, thinking ourselves more powerful than our Creator, with the idea that we have the power of movement while God does not. Surely, especially in the above analogy, we miss the mark.

The next thought to come to my mind was “stand strong and immovable”. I recalled the times in my mind that my own parents, especially my Dad as the patriarch and head of the family, has embodied the above analogy, being a physical image on this earth of our understanding of God the Father. Growing up, as my parents faced the perils and dangers of raising 7 children, with the oldest presenting unique challenges, more and more my parents, my Father, became that immovable figure, representing Heavenly Father, standing strong and immovable. In my imagination this morning my Dad was literally standing in the doorway entrance to an LDS chapel building. Standing irreconcilable, as a strong and immovable being, waiting for the lost child to return correctly, safely to the fold (of the loving chapel door arms).

That’s not always how my parents were though. Once, for most of childhood into adult life, the image I have, particularly of my mother, is someone who wades into the stream, whether ankle deep, mid thigh, or over the head, and stands strong and immovable in love with her children, whatever they are going through. I know many times, despite the fact that our mother taught us how to swim at a very young age and insured we were strong capable swimmers, my mother tread water with me and kept my head above water. I was the one stuck in an irreconcilable circumstance, my mother the being capable of the power of movement, coming to be strong for me in the situation I was in that called for it.

That was, is, love. That is what I believe it means to be strong and immovable. So I googled it. I couldn’t remember the exact words of the scripture or the scripture reference. I found was I was looking for, in a 2008 talk by David Bednar, Mosiah 5:15 “Therefore, I would that ye should be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in good works, that Christ, the Lord God Omnipotent, may seal you his, that you may be brought to heaven, that ye may have everlasting salvation and eternal life, through the wisdom, and power, and justice, and mercy of him who created all things, in heaven and in earth, who is God above all. Amen.” There it was, and the word is steadfast, not strong, and immovable. Well, my mind immediately went to the phrase steadfast love, which is a very deep and profound theme in scripture that I learned while in my studies of the works by Dr. Margaret Barker.

Now the scripture theme that ran through my mind was steadfast love, which is another translation for covenant. And not the Moses or Abraham covenant that we’ve heard of and learned so much about, Moses covenant was for a law, Abraham’s covenant was for land, but rather the deeper, individual covenant, which both Moses and Abraham did enjoy with God, that can better be understood in today’s phrase cosmic consciousness or cosmic covenant.

The scriptures have some beautiful things to say about steadfast love, here are a few:

Hosea 6:6 “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”

All is Psalms 136, but here is a sample “136 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
    for his steadfast love endures forever.
Give thanks to the God of gods,
    for his steadfast love endures forever.
Give thanks to the Lord of lords,
    for his steadfast love endures forever to him who alone does great wonders,
    for his steadfast love endures forever;”

Lamentations 3: 22-23 “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

Psalm 86:15 “But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”

Exodus 34:6 “The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,”

Then we move into the NT where we get examples of what God’s steadfast love looks like and examples on how to live it.

1John 4:7-8 “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

1Corinthians 13: 1-13 “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; …”

Ephesians 2:4 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us ….”

1John 4:19 “We love because he first loved us.”

And finally, the beautiful description of how to live in steadfast love, in the covenant of loving kindness, as we have learned is the way our Father in Heaven deals we us, we have Matthew chapters 5, 6, & 7 known as The Sermon on the Mount.

And we have in the Book of Mormon King Benjamin’s talk to his people comprised in Mosiah chapters 2-5 where he exhorts the people to be steadfast and immovable in good works. Dear readers, chapter 5 tells us that they are given this exhortation AFTER they become sons and daughters in Christ, after they experienced a mighty change of heart.

Here is one of my very few notes that I actually took while I was studying through the materials of Dr. Barker. It was from one of her YouTube lectures, but may also be (the general idea) found in her pdf paper Creation Theology 2004. “Learning the secret things of the kingdom, how the kingdom ‘day 1’ was divided, how the actions of men were weighed in a balance. He saw all parts of the creation moving in their appointed ways, keeping faith with each other, in accordance with the oath, the covenant, covenant as it was understood before the Deuteronomists changed the emphasis, and applied it only to people keeping the law of Moses, rather than to the whole of creation, functioning within the bonds of the great covenant.”

After all of these meditations brought on by the few minutes of an early morning dream, my understanding is that we miss the mark on the deeper meaning of standing steadfast and immovable. Yet if we will repent, by allowing the softening of our hearts until we can turn to love, we can be brought into this covenant of steadfast love, and no longer remain in sin by missing the mark.

On a more personal level, maybe if I have discovered myself in a more firm position, standing on more solid ground, maybe I can be the one who chooses to love by wading into the deep waters to tread water with my parents and help them to keep their heads above water. This is a reciprocal relationship of loving kindness, and we each take the opportunity to show expressions of the love that God first gave to us.